An overview of SrRuO3-based heterostructures for spintronic and topological phenomena

Abstract SrRuO 3 (SRO)-based heterostructures have attracted much attention for potential applications such as electrodes, oxide spintronics, topological electronics and electrocatalytic function mainly due to the strong spin–orbit coupling, itinerant ferromagnetism with 4 d electrons, high metallic conductivity, perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and rich oxygen octahedral distortion of SRO. Here, this work aims to offer a timely and systematic review on SRO-based heterostructures for its emerging opportunities in oxide spintronic and topological electronic applications. We first present a brief summary of the current status in SRO-based heterostructures and describe the motivations of this review. We then briefly review the surface and interface modulation in SRO-based heterostructures, including oxygen octahedral distortions (antiferrodistortive mode and ferroelectric mode) engineering and ion defect engineering. In the third part, we discuss the spin-charge interconversion phenomena in SRO-based heterostructures, covering the inverse spin Hall effect and current-induced spin-orbit torques. Particularly, in the fourth part, we discuss the emergent topological Hall effect and underlying mechanism in SRO-based heterostructures, including the two-channel anomalous Hall effect and Berry phase manipulation. The fifth part presents the magnetic Weyl fermions and its electric-field control of SRO films. We finally conclude with a discussion of challenges and prospects of SRO-based heterostructures, which provides a guidance for exploring novel physical properties and designing multifunctional devices based on SRO.